India’s industrial production declined by 3.6% in February, official data showed on Monday. In addition, retail inflation rose to 5.52% in March, mainly due to higher food prices, government data showed on Monday. Retail inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) stood at 5.03% in February.
According to data from the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) released by the National Statistics Office (NSO), manufacturing sector output declined by 3.7% in February 2021.
Mining production slipped 5.5%, while electricity production rose 0.1% in February.
In February 2020, the IIP was up by 5.2%.
During April-February, IIP contracted by 11.3% as compared to 1% increase in the same period of 2019-20.
Meanwhile, according to data released by the National Statistics Office (NSO), the rate of price rise in food baskets rose to 4.94% in March from 3.87% in the previous month.
During the month of February, inflation in the category of ‘3.53% Infl Fuel and Light’ was 4.50%.
Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank of India reported retail inflation of 5% in the January-March quarter of 2020-21 and 5.2% in the first two quarters of the current financial year.
After breaking the upper tolerance limit of 6% for six consecutive months (June – November 2020), CPI inflation fell in December 2020 and further reduced in January 2021, with a sharp improvement in vegetable prices and grain prices. There was a decline of 4.1% after the softening. .
However, it rebounded to 5% in February, driven mainly by base effects.
The Reserve Bank, which mainly factors in retail inflation, given its monetary policy, has been asked to keep CPI inflation at 4%, with a margin of 2% on either side.
The central bank retained the prime lending rate (repo) in its final monetary policy citing inflation concerns
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